The Final Moments of Fenrir Greyback
by cathymalfoy
Summary: Fenrir's last thoughts, before he gets the Kiss.


A/N: Inspired by the tortured genius of Edgar Allen Poe: extremely dark. Only the scenario belongs to me. Enjoy and review, please!

* * *

"I suppose it is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts." –G.B. Burgin

* * *

The world sees me as a monster. They think I am not human. Perhaps I am not. In fact, I am perhaps more than a monster. I am the demon that haunts the mind of any dime-a-dozen, typical human. I am the fear that cannot be controlled. After all, what good is it to be human? What good is it to live a life of scrutiny, stiff formality, and conformity? No one is anywhere close to being exempt from these pathetic things. No sane person is immune.

Sanity has always been overrated for as long as I recognized the concept. Sanity confines. It is so mediocre compared to the freedom of the insane. Soundness of mind could easily be compared to a worthless, untrained guard guarding the deadliest of demons. It does not gain strength from its duties. It simply grows weak, until it is finally defeated. Madness, on the other hand, has been strengthened by all its battles with its lesser suppressor. What is reason? It represents an idealized concept.

There was not always a line between the sane and the insane. And to this day the line does not stand firm. The only difference is that a madman can only deny his madness, while the hassled and tortured sane world incessantly tries to convince itself of its madness. I find this utterly pathetic. We were born mad! Civilization has simply softened us into beings of denial.

And I, too, had been confined to those tedious expectations. I was once a mess of powerless emotions. I once had innocence, the time bomb in all of us just waiting to explode into a world full of self-inflicted complexity and anger when we're not quite ready to handle it just yet. I once found joy in trivial matters. But that is my past self, the life of my imprisoned soul.

I am not yet mad, but I've heard the jingling of the key rings in my head. The poorly wrought cage housing my madness will be opened, but not quite yet. There is never an ounce of justice, never a grant of true good fortune in such a cruel world. I have heard this sinisterly beautiful melody for years. It taunts me. Perhaps the only thing that comes close to being quite as satisfying would be the taste of pure innocent flesh.

Before the concept of rationale even existed, the only omnivores and herbivores were the lowest animals in the food chain. They added nothing to the world, fit for nothing more than to trim the meek grass beneath their feet and to be a walking meal for the higher mammals. The irony of humans, so filled with egocentricity, would actually have a thought of eating of the same ground like animals while claiming to be so much more.

The carnivores always prevail, except in the tales of faeries in which the dark side in mankind is shrouded by frivolity and a false sense of security. Those were meant to be children's stories, little rhymes and verses to get one into bed at night and have sugary little dreams. But we've allowed them to distort our reality. We decide that perceiving a world of fluff is better. We are truly soft and afraid of the cruel world that we create for ourselves in our oblivion. And we become afraid of the monsters, the creatures that were ostracized because they didn't belong in such a storybook world.

Perhaps you think I am mad, but I assure you I have reason about me. My reason is due to take flight to control a more suitable, vulnerable man, but it is sadly not prepared to make the journey quite yet. Logic is such a foolish fellow. He has such possibility, but his own knowledge is a curse. He hungers for truth, yet goes all the way across the heavens a multitude of times before realizing truth had always been within him. If he would only come down from his high almighty pedestal and pay a visit to his mad counterpart.

You shudder at the sight of my teeth, sharpened to little points like precise daggers and stained with the blood of the sweet innocent minds in which you implant false images of security, which they in turn will pass on to their children. They will grow up to complain of the cruel world, yet they will make the world even crueler and more terrible. They will fear the same misunderstood demons you fear and try to lead them to their ruin, saying they were a threat, that it would be better this way. In doing this they will bestow a curse on themselves and their fellows. Monsters do not stay caged up forever. Unlike pathetic existence of reason and soundness of mind, they only grow stronger until they are unleashed. Their anger burns stronger, and their wrath grows worse with the endurance of their confinement.

I had done all the hypocrites of the world a favor. What better to bring a bunch of upturned noses down to earth than bloodshed? What better to make them see that they had created a monster in me, that the all-powerful internal demon they had fostered in me was finally claiming what was rightfully his? They try to tell horrific stories in their textbooks that they claim to be fact, because they afraid to do anything more to attack. Their children grow up to believe this twisted stories and see themselves superior, which their parents happily christen to be "proper Wizarding pride". But what happens when that ideal little angel of a youth those parents can't stop bragging about becomes one of the misunderstood and feared monsters? My dear fellow, there comes the rude awakening.

I've observed so many such cases, but it only kindles the fire within. Parents will sob and whine, blaming me for their own faults and hypocrisy. They teach compassion, yet they scorn and curse those who are different. They shudder when recalling the witch burnings, the incarceration of their own kind, yet they only see a harsh justice in inflicting wounds on those with abnormalities within their own communities. Some, worn smooth by years of indoctrination and criticism, even see monsters within their own children. With the bite marks, they not only see blood trickling rapidly, but the departure human soul, to be replaced by the heartlessness of a beast.

They fail to understand that the child's soul does not take flight. Even I, whom so many fear and are so full of hatred for, still have a soul. It is wounded, perhaps slightly different because of my experiences, but it is, nevertheless, a soul. I can still feel passion, perhaps even love. But what can I love? The only souvenir I have gained from love is a scar across my left cheek, a thin line that still burns when I recall how it came to be. Those arms, those beautiful pale arms… the soft skin that seemed to surpass any silk and finery in the world when we embraced. Those arms had been laced with fear. Such a terrible poison seemed to burn me when the back of her soft hand ran itself roughly across my cheek. Just like any other normal human I've probably ever met, she had so much hatred running through her. The cursed prejudice, the disease that had spread throughout the world, it had not failed to inflict itself upon her.

I feel my soul within me, or the mindless figures of darkness that surround me would not bother to give me so much attention. Perhaps there is no love, perhaps there is no true happiness, but the soul does not perish without such things. Such a tortured existence…if only I were mad.

The sweet venom of madness does not yet pierce through the surface in my bloodshot eyes. They have lost all happiness and color, but they are still anticipating, lost and searching. I do not even know what they are looking for. Perhaps they see demons, the taunting residences of the Underworld, and are afraid to look away. Yes. That is more than likely. My ears even hear the ringing; the maddening ringing that does not stop. It is far sharper than any siren, far more hideous than the sound of any long-rusted bells of mourning. The heartless clanging of a house full of bells, bells, bells, bells, and more bells! And what more is there? Bells, I say! The moaning and groaning and deranged shrieking of _**bells! **_

But the bells are a perfectly conducted symphony compared to the taunting whispers of the demons down below. They snicker and sneer at my sorry state. They know this will all go away once I am mad, but they also say they know that I will never go mad, if I keep doubting my madness. But surely I will know for certain when I am mad? Their whispers are becoming deafening shouts. But their words shall hold no power over me! I cannot help but cackle out loud.

And now, the fleshless, emotionless figures close in on me. The room is sterile. This is agony. This is the inevitable death that I must face. I do not see a door, a way out of the room. There are no windows! The paint is a blinding white. How it contrasts with the dark, decaying appearances of my company. Perhaps they are welcoming. I do not see how they could be inhospitable in any particular way. Their gray arms are thrown wide. Why, they are coming this way! Their hoods are even lowered. Everything is a blur…. my heart seems to be draining of all the pain I've experienced as a sane man.

The demons were wrong. I'm sure I'm joining them at last. Or perhaps I will be better than them. And I cannot look into my sound-minded past with satisfaction. It had gone by so fast. But somehow, I cannot seem to release it into the foggy marshes of time quite yet. I cling to it, but I do not know why. Maybe it was something that happened. There are ideas and thoughts that refuse to be cast out, so the chaotic oblivion of madness shall never come. In the ever-stormy sea of my mind in which innumerable ships have sunk, there is a lighthouse in the distance, though without the optimistic cliché of the silver lining.

No. I am not happy, and I have not yet crossed the flickering line to insanity. But something keeps my soul intact. There was happiness in my past, little memories that try to prevail in the ferocious storm I conduct in my head. I'm not certain if I should be glad or disappointed now that they seem to be slipping away. I once led a blissful childhood…I once had true friends…I once had admirers…I once was a player in the game of young love…I once embraced life as if it were a bosom friend…I once had true joy…I once was happy…Once upon a time…it seems so long ago…

There is no line between sanity and insanity in the coldness in which I now lay. The frigidity that came with the visitors of my cursed room has taken over me…. I know no more…I am no more…but at least now there is certainty.


End file.
